Thursday, October 22, 2015

Steve Scaglione, MD will
present “Prevalence, readmissions, and mortality associated with Liver
Cirrhosis in a large national health insurance administrative database” on
Wednesday, October 28th at 11am in conference room 3340.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Trialect at www.trialect.com is soliciting applications for USAID Washington, DC based Internships in
Public Health. GHFP program offers 16 weeks internships Currently enrolled in
master’s or other post-bachelor’s degree candidate in public health,
international health, international development, social sciences, or a related
fields such as biostatistics, epidemiology, etc; or, completion of such within
the past 12 months. To be considered for internship, applications have to be
submitted before October 23. The application process is very simple and
requires filling a questionnaire that covers their education, current studies,
language skills, experience, etc. The details can be perused at :USAID Internships in Public Health

Monday, October 19, 2015

Thank you so much for
Raising the Barre at this year’s Pumpkin Patch Parade! It was a hugely
successful event, thanks in the largest part to our Loyola Public Health volunteers who kept everything running smoothly.

Your help with setting up,
running the games, Fit and Fun, Jump Rope, tear down, and everything in between
made this a truly remarkable event.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Drs. Richard Cooper and Majid
Afshar will discuss plan for joint submission of CTSA with Univ. of Chicago,
and further thoughts on advancing Translational Research at LUMC on
Tuesday, October 20th at 11 am in conference room 3340.

Monday, October 5, 2015

This fall I’m working with Seven Generations Ahead and the
Illinois Farm to School Network for my practicum and capstone project. We’re
using SoGoSurvey (http://www.sogosurvey.com/) to create and distribute a state
wide survey of Illinois farmers and school stakeholders to help develop
identify barriers to implementation of farm to school programming. We’re hoping
to get feedback from all counties in Illinois to identify the unique challenges
and successes of schools from all areas of the state.The data collection and analysis should be
completed this semester so that the new toolkit can be developed early next
year to help facilitate the connection between schools and farmers with ample
time to start planning for the next school year.

After searching for a survey creation tool that fits our
needs we’ve chosen SoGoSurvey over other platforms for its ease of use, and the
ability to add our own logo and branding to the survey. We wanted a more
professional look than other places would provide, without going to a much
costlier service. Additionally, it’s super easy to start setting up your survey
and has all the response types you might need (single select, multi select,
ranking, etc). Since our survey is being sent to individuals with very different
roles it’s important that we can customize it for each person who responds.

One of the great features that isn’t available on many of
the free survey platforms is the branching and skip logic. No need for your
respondents to wade through a sea of questions that need the answer “n/a”, just
jump them to the next applicable question based on their answers. As someone
who has never generated a survey from scratch, I find the interface intuitive
and easy to use.

As any of you who have disseminated online surveys know,
just because you reach out to someone doesn’t mean they’ll actually take the
survey. SoGoSurvey lets you track who is opening your e-mails and taking the
survey so you can track who you need to follow up with without bombarding those
who have already completed it. It also allows for completely anonymous
responses, which can make the IRB process a lot easier.

For those of you who need a little help with the analysis
side of things, there are great tools for summaries to get you started, and you
can easily export your data to do further analysis. It’ll also make pretty
graphs for your presentations which we all know is important.

So if anyone is planning a survey for their capstone,
(because of course you are already thinking about your capstone, right?) SoGoSurvey
is a great option. Or you can do what I did and spend a couple of hours
researching and comparing all the different tools out there.

And most importantly, if anyone knows any farmers and/or
school decision makers (principals, food service directors, teachers, or
wellness directors) who you think would be interested in giving us some
feedback and help us get fresh, healthy, local food into Illinois schools, send
me an e-mail at jtyryfter@gmail.com.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Dr. Holly Kramer will be featured in the next the Public Health Sciences Seminar next Tuesday, October 6, at 11 am in Room 3340. Her title is: "Results of the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial"

Friday, September 25, 2015

The Department of Public Health Sciences congratulates Dr. Bamidele Tayo on his recent award from the Doris Duke Foundation. They have awarded his application that requests support for a working meeting of the AfroSickleNet group in order to create a stable, multi-disciplinary collaboration of experts in all the core fields of sickle cell research. The funds will support a two day working meeting in Chicago of 25-35 investigators from North America and Africa to share information on existing projects and to develop new collaborations. Way to go Dr. Tayo!

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Prior to 2010, I had never heard the term pulmonary fibrosis. But now, more than 5 years later, pulmonary fibrosis (PF) has profoundly affected my life both personally and professionally.

In March of 2010, my father Jeffery was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) after several years of an unexplained cough and increasing shortness of breath with exertion. He remained relatively stable for several years but suffered an acute exacerbation of symptoms in November of last year and eventually succumbed to the illness on May 19, 2015.

September is Global Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month and awareness is crucial to a disease that kills more people than breast cancer each year yet very few people have ever heard of until they are personally affected.

Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) in the simplest terms means scarring in the lungs. It is an interstitial lung disease (ILD), a group of more than 200 different diseases that affect the interstitium of the lung, the place where gas exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide occurs. Over time, the lungs becomes increasingly thickened and scarred, causing shortness of breath and low oxygen levels in the blood.

PF can occur from several known causes like autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma; certain occupational and environmental exposures like coal and metal dusts, animal proteins, and mold; infections or drug-induced exposures from radiation or chemotherapy. The disease is termed idiopathic when the cause cannot be found. There is also a genetic or familial form that makes up about 10-15% of cases. Researchers believe that an abnormal healing response occurs after repeated injury to the lung, which leads to inflammation, and scarring; however, the exact process is still unknown.

The prevalence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is between 150,000 and 200,000 in the United States; however, the full impact of ILD is thought to be much higher. While PF affects people of all ages, including children, IPF is more common in older adults and nearly 1 in every 200 people age 65 and older carried a diagnosis of IPF in 2011 in the United States.

People with PF can present with shortness of breath during exertion, a dry cough and fatigue, and it is not uncommon to take over 2 years for a diagnosis of PF to be made. Diagnosis can be made through a focused history and physical examination followed by a high-resolution CAT scan, which helps diagnose the type of PF, including IPF. Some patients may undergo a lung biopsy.

The clinical course of the disease is unpredictable and can vary greatly from patient to patient and treatment options are limited. In October 2014, the FDA approved two therapies for IPF, pirfenidone and nintedanib that help to slow the progression. Many patients also utilize supplemental oxygen and pulmonary rehabilitation programs to help reduce symptoms, and comorbidities like GERD and sleep apnea can be treated to help improve quality of life. Lung transplantation is an option for some patients. Currently, PF is the number one indication for lung transplantation in the United States.

After my father’s diagnosis we turned to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF) for information and support. In 2011 I began working for the PFF, where I am now the director of programs, which includes managing our Patient Communication Center, our Support Group Leader Network and the PFF Care Center Network (CCN), comprised of 21 medical centers specializing in treating patients with fibrotic lung diseases. Because the disease is relatively unknown and the diagnostic process can be long, it is important for patients and families to find accurate information about the disease, find a pulmonologist who specializes in ILD to discuss treatment options, and find a local support group to help deal with the psychosocial issues that arise from living with a chronic and life limiting disease. The PFF offers many programs to help patients, caregivers, and families navigate the unknown world of PF and helps create a community so that no one feels alone.

From a public health perspective, there are several challenges that pulmonary fibrosis presents. Since the natural history of the disease is poorly understood, observational and epidemiologic studies are important to understand the current incidence and prevalence as well as identify known associations. The PFF has set up the PFF Patient Registry that will collect data from all types of pulmonary fibrosis the CCN sites across the United States to help researchers better understand the disease. Eventually, the PFF Patient Registry will become a tool to quickly enroll clinical trials that will lead to more treatments. The data collected from the CCN will lead to the identification of care patterns at each site and compare patient outcomes to potentially determine a standard of care.

On the policy side, while the FDA did approve the first two drugs last year, it was only for one type of PF, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and while the drugs help to slow the progression of the disease, they do not improve patient’s most debilitating symptoms like the cough and shortness of breath. IPF was included in the FDA’s Patient-Focused Drug Development program and a meeting was held in September 2014 when the FDA sought input from patients and caregivers affected by IPF to better understand the needs and expectations for therapeutic treatments from the community itself.

Another pressing issue for the PF community has been regarding Medicare reimbursements for supplemental oxygen use and pulmonary rehab (PR) programs. Medicare data for both of these treatments are based on data from COPD patients; however, PF patients utilize both oxygen and PR very differently. For example, if COPD patients use more than 10 liters per minute (lpm) of oxygen, they can suffer from carbon dioxide poisoning. But at the end of my father’s life he was using 25 lpm that was administered through a stationary oxygen concentrator set at 10 lpm delivered through a nasal cannula with an additional 15 liters administered through an e-tank with a face mask. He could have greatly benefited from the use of liquid oxygen but we could not get an oxygen company to supply the equipment because of Medicare’s Competitive Bidding Program that changed how durable medical equipment (DME) companies were being reimbursed. After Competitive Bidding went into effect, suppliers stopped carrying liquid oxygen because the Medicare reimbursements were not covering the costs of supplying the equipment.

This September, the PF community including patients, caregivers, family members, healthcare professionals and industry come together to let the world know about pulmonary fibrosis by attending education events and fundraisers, wearing a Breathe Bracelet or participating in the #BlueUp4PF campaign. There are many ways to get involved this month so I encourage everyone to visit the PFF website at www.pulmonaryfibrosis.org to learn more and be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The Pumpkin Patch Parade at Maywood Fine Arts is just around the corner! On Saturday, October 10 hundreds of Maywood children and their families will enjoy a day of fun and festivity – games, dances, prizes and a walk around the neighborhood. Come out and learn about the community you study in!

Saturday, October 10, 8:30 am – 2:00 pm. Dr. Luke especially needs students to run the Fit & Fun booth – healthy snacks, games and jump rope contest! If interested, please get in touch with Dr. Luke at aluke@luc.edu.

It’s a great day outside in the neighborhood! Check out our MPH students from last year!

Monday, September 21, 2015

A fellowship opportunity is available in the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
(ODPHP) in Rockville, MD. The participant will gain professional experience in
a health policy setting.

Within ODPHP, the Division of Health Care Quality
coordinates departmental efforts to improve patient safety, including
prevention of adverse drug events and health care-associated infections.
Recently, the division has undertaken research aimed at reducing racial/ethnic
and other disparities in preventable adverse health care-associated outcomes.

·Supporting and helping coordinate cross-federal
efforts related to key patient safety topics, including active support of
Partnership for Patients and the new Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative

·Assisting in the development of communication
materials (articles, talking points, presentations) related to adverse drug
events and other health care-associated conditions

Click
here
for detailed information about the fellowship position, qualifications and to
apply.